Sprayberry Crossing Redevelopment Approved By Cobb Commissioners

COBB COUNTY, GA — After 25 years of sitting vacant, the long-awaited redevelopment of Sprayberry Crossing was approved by the Cobb County Board of Commissioners Tuesday amid a crowd of residents opposed to the project.

Atlantic Residential got the go-ahead to turn the roughly 17-acre rundown shopping center — located at East Piedmont and Sandy Plains roads — into a mixed-use development with 102 townhomes, 132 age-restricted apartments for citizens age 55 and older, and a 34,000-square-foot Lidl grocery store. The motion was approved in a 4-1 vote, with Commissioner Keli Gambrill voting against the measure.

The Cobb County Planning Commission sent the Sprayberry plans for commissioners' consideration earlier this month, but did not recommend approval or denial.

“This shopping center has been an anvil around the necks of this community for over a decade,” said Kevin Moore, a Marietta real estate attorney representing Atlantic, during Tuesday's meeting.

Read more: Sprayberry Crossing Advances, But Without Recommendation

The area has been blighted for decades, but not all residents are happy about the redevelopment.

A total of 36 people showed up to Tuesday's zoning hearing to oppose the project, saying redeveloping the blighted area will make traffic worse in an area already plagued by congestion.

Sandy Plains Road sees more than 41,000 cars traversing it each day, according to the Department of Transportation — and traffic estimates indicate Sprayberry Crossing's redevelopment would add roughly 3,500 more cars each day.

Tony Raffa, owner of a McDonald's at Sandy Plains and Post Oak Tritt roads, said he was concerned about the changes proposed to traffic flow along Post Oak Tritt Road. The approved plan limits left turns to and from Post Oak Tritt Road.

“We might be trading one safety issue for a number of safety issues,” Raffa said.

Commissioner JoAnn Birrell, who represents the Sprayberry area, said Tuesday that she knows the approved plan isn't perfect, but overall it's what the county asked for when its leaders wanted to improve the area.

The county passed a redevelopment ordinance in 2005, which allowed for the creation of redevelopment overlay districts, or RODs. These districts were intended to promote commercial, residential and mixed-use redevelopment in certain parts of the county by waiving or reducing some requirements.

Sprayberry Crossing was the only project to invoke the ordinance since 2005. Commissioners voted to amend the ordinance in February so that developers could no longer use it during a rezoning application.

Birrell said the county also implemented a blight tax in 2018, which hiked up the owner's property taxes from $3,108 to $21,756 annually — a 600 percent increase. Code enforcement has received 391 complaints on the property since 2004, and police have responded to 125 calls to the property in the last five years.

But some residents were still unhappy with the decision. Gambrill received applause when she placed her vote against the approval of the project, and one resident was escorted out for heckling Birrell while she was speaking.

“It’s not a perfect plan and I don’t know that there would ever be a perfect plan. But it’s what’s before us today,” Birrell said Tuesday.

Related:

• Sprayberry Crossing Advances, But Without Recommendation
• Sprayberry Crossing, North Point Ministries Tabled Until May
• Cobb Code Changes Address Lawn Equipment Noise, Redevelopment